The hotel was only four miles away, so the taxi ride was brief. Jackie was still on the phone but no longer speaking to Pete. Instead, she was trading baby talk with little Tony, letting him know that Mommy missed him and she was coming home very soon. As she began singing her son a lullaby, Rose and the Doctor shared shy smiles over hearing this softer, gentler side of Jackie Tyler. Even though her thoughts had mostly been focused on her own phone conversations, Jackie still managed to pay attention to what was going on around her. She saw that her daughter was in silent turmoil over losing the original Doctor and being settled with the duplicate. She also saw that the half-human Doctor was nervous about his new life in a different world. She didn't suppose that either would have an easy time of adjusting, but knew they'd simply have to make the best of the situation.
Once they got to the hotel, they were informed that there would be at least an hour wait before any rooms were available. That gave them time to have a cup of tea and a bite to eat in the hotel restaurant. Sensing that the reunited couple had a lot to talk about, but no intentions of doing it in front of her, Jackie found herself dominating the conversation. She decided to tell the Doctor — in great detail -- all about her marriage to Pete and the ensuing birth of her son. Those were two subjects she never tired of talking about and the lighthearted topic seemed to put everyone at ease. Despite the lack of alien intervention, scientific gadgetry or explosions, the Doctor nonetheless seemed to enjoy hearing about her wedding day. He did a little bit of frowning during the birthing story, probably uncomfortable with imagining Jackie with her legs propped open, but he laughed at all the appropriate moments and seemed genuinely happy for her.
Living in the parallel world had been a positive experience for the elder Tyler despite the culture shock. It took a while to get use to certain aspects, and some things she would never get use to, but the important part was that she had herself a complete family. All she wished for now was for her daughter to be happy again. Rose had blossomed back on the old Earth when she first met the Doctor. No one and nothing was more important to her than that strange alien who took her far, far from home and constantly endangered her life. Now, he was back, almost. As they sat at the round table for four, eating and chatting, Jackie noticed the look on her child's face. The lips may have been smiling but the eyes weren't. The eyes said that she was still missing her Doctor. Jackie felt sorry for all involved; the real Doctor that had walked away, the half-human one gazing longingly at the girl to his right, and Rose, trapped in the wrong world with the wrong Doctor.
The hour went by quickly as well as a second one before they realized it. Jackie lead the way back to the lobby and the check-in desk. She didn't bother to ask if the two people on her heels wanted to share a room. She could tell by the way the Doctor had grabbed onto Rose's hand at every opportunity that he did not want to be separated from her. And Rose had already made it perfectly clear that once she was reunited with the Doctor, she would never leave his side again. Even though this wasn't the original Doctor, Jackie felt that he was more than a fair substitute. The two definitely needed some alone time to talk things over. Hopefully, things would work themselves out.
On the way up in the elevator, Jackie laid out her plans for the rest of the evening. She was going to take a long, hot bath then wrap herself up in one of the hotel's fluffy robes, send her clothes out for overnight laundry, then settle in with a good movie. As she reached her room, Jackie reminded her followers that Pete would be arriving in the company Zeppelin by late morning to take them back home. They didn't have to rush, but it wasn't an invitation for them to sleep the morning away. Before entering her room Jackie turned and gave Rose a knowing look, silently offering her daughter an opportunity to voice any concerns she had about their sleeping arrangements. Apparently, there weren't any.
"G'night, Mum. We'll see you in the morning," said Rose as she gave her mother a quick hug and peck on the cheek.
"G'night, sweetheart." Jackie looked to the Doctor and said, "You behave yourself, mister, and don't go doing anything stupid."
"My plan exactly," the Doctor assured her with a tiny smile.
Satisfied with that response, Jackie retired to her room. The Doctor followed Rose two doors down the hall to their evening’s accommodations. Once inside, she needed to use the loo and quickly headed for the bathroom, requesting needlessly that he not go anywhere. The Doctor walked about the room casually looking it over. It had two full-sized beds, leaving them options of sleeping separately or cuddling up in just one bed. They had only slept together a few times. Well, not actually slept. Rose had slept while he had laid awake and watched her. There had never been any improper contact because he had never viewed her as a sex object. Thoughts of intimacy, at times, had entered his mind but he knew better than to act upon them. Rose had been little more than a child when she traveled with him. Now she was a woman. He could see the changes in her. She was more mature, wore less makeup, her dark roots were nicely hidden, and she had carried... a gun. He'd almost forgotten about the giant Torchwood bazooka she had been carrying while running down the middle of the road to greet him.
As she stepped outside of the bathroom, he pointed an accusing finger at her. "YOU...were carrying a gun!"
"What?"
"When we met on the street, you had a very large gun with you."
"Yeah, I did. Mickey showed me how to use it. Oh, Mickey!" Rose sighed at the thought of her friend on the other side of the Void, and mentally kicked herself for just now realizing she wouldn't be seeing him again. "I'm going to miss him. He was really a great friend, putting up with my obsession of getting back to you."
"Why did you feel the need to learn to use a gun?" The Doctor asked, still on a rant. "Oh, please tell me you didn't kill anyone with it."
"Never got the chance, actually."
"But you would have?"
"Only in self-defense. We knew the Darkness was coming. We didn't know what it was but we wanted to be prepared to combat it."
"And you figured using a gun was the best way?"
Rose folded her arms defensively across her chest. "Yeah, well, we can't all be born with the natural ability to destroy our enemies with cleverness." She instantly regretted saying those words and wished she could have traveled back in time to prevent herself from doing so. "I'm sorry," she quickly apologized. "I didn't mean--"
"No, it's okay," said the Doctor softly. He realized he had no right to criticize others for potential acts of violence considering his own track record. He plopped down on the foot of one of the beds and stared down grimly at his opened palms. "Oh, Rose, there's so much blood on my hands. I'm so very tired of all the killing. It never ends. So many died and it's all my fault. He's right. I do need help.... Please, help me not to kill anyone else."
Rose knelt down on the floor in front of him and covered his hands with hers. "Don't, Doctor. It's all right. What you did, like you said, there was no other choice. The Daleks would have destroyed all of creation."
"I'm not...it's not just the Daleks. Pompeii...that was me. It was me. It was me." Tears began to flow then as his body shook with choking sobs. Rose stood up and wrapped her arms around him, planting kisses atop his head and rubbing his back in a comforting motion. She was confused at first by his Pompeii comment. But the meaning quickly sank in and she held him tighter, feeling his arms encircle her as if holding on for dear life. It took a few minutes for him to calm down and his sobbing to end. Finally, he took in a deep, composing breath and pulled gently away.
"Better?" Rose asked, caressing his face while trying and failing to get him to look her in the eyes. He nodded and blew out a sigh.
"Fine. I'm fine now. Sorry."
"Sorry for what?"
"Got your front all wet there," he gestured towards the fabric covering her chest now dampened with his tears.
Rose glanced down, then shook her head. "Doesn't matter. It'll dry soon enough." She sat down beside him, wrapping an arm around his back as her left hand rested on his bicep. "So Pompeii was you?"
He nodded. "And Donna. Oh, poor Donna. I was only trying to give her a bit of a holiday in ancient Rome. But my calculations were off just a bit and we landed in Pompeii...on Volcano Day. Not a time and place I would have ever chosen to visit on purpose."
"So, what happened?"
"There was a race of aliens -- Pyroviles-- who had lost their own planet, one of the 29 that Darvos stole, and they decided that they would just take over planet earth. The volcano wasn't originally going to erupt, but I used their technology to make it happen, because apparently, as far as Earth's history records were concerned, I had already done just that."
"And you didn't remember doing it?"
"How could I? I hadn't done it yet, not in my own timeline."
"It's all that traveling back and forth in time, yeah?"
"Right. History says that the volcano erupted on that day and as many as twenty thousand people perished as a result. If I had changed that, billions more would have died at the hands of the Pyroviles and Earth as we know it would no longer exist."
"So you saved the world, again."
"I saved the world.... but at what cost?"
"But you didn't have any other choice."
"Oh, there's always a choice, just never an easy, peasy choice. Do I kill off twenty thousand people to preserve a timeline and exterminate a race that has just as much right to survive as Humans? Do I drown the very last brood of newborn Racnoss and help send another race into extinction? Do I push the button to destroy not only myself but a fleet of Sontarans because they believe in death before dishonor? Well, that particular choice was taken from me by a foolish, but brilliant schoolboy who I instructed to do something clever with his life, and in the end, he did. Then there was the Titanic. Not the one from Earth, the spaceship Titanic. But like the original Titanic, thousands of lives were lost."
"Was it your fault?"
"No, but I probably could have saved them if I could have gotten someone to listen to me in time."
"Everyone died?"
"Managed to save three. Oh, and probably everyone still hanging around spending their Christmas in London. But that was only possible because others sacrificed themselves to buy me more time. That seems to happen a lot. Also, there’s the year that wasn't... millions of deaths there."
"The year that wasn't?"
"Yeah. See, I allowed the TARDIS to be stolen by a madman and he used it to create a paradox machine in which the Earth's future mutated race came back in time and decimated one-tenth of the world's population... for fun."
"But it was the year that wasn't. That means you were able to repair the timeline and make it so that none of that happened, right?"
"Most of it. But... people still died. And people still suffered. Martha and her family...." His voice trailed off, not wanting to revive those particular memories.
"So, of all those choices you had to make, tell me, would you go back in time and choose differently?"
That was a question he had asked himself over and over again. In each life or death situation he found himself in, he always wondered if he had made the right choice. But making the choice the first time around was difficult enough, so he certainly wouldn't want to put himself into that same position a second time.
"It's okay. You don't have to answer that," Rose rescued him from having to come up with a response, for which, he was truly grateful. Rose took hold of his hand as she rested her cheek against his shoulder. "You know how soldiers go off to war to fight for freedom and to protect those who can't protect themselves? They know that killing is wrong and they know that they might get killed themselves, but they're put into a position where they don't have much choice. And then, there's the General, the man who has to lead the soldiers into battle. He knows he's sending his troops out into danger and that some of them might not make it back alive, but he sees the bigger picture. He sees all that was, all that is and all that ever could be. His knowledge can save the world, the universe and everything else. And there'll be casualties, yeah, soldiers and civilians alike. But without him, the battle would be lost from the start and there would be nothing left at all, not even hope."
Rose's voice soothed him more than her words, but he listened and tried to believe in them. He tried to believe that the soldiers and civilians that had followed his lead had not died in vain; that their deaths had meant something other than failure. He bowed his head despairingly and let out a deep sigh.
"I'm so very tired, Rose. I just want to stop and rest. Can't I just stop and rest?" He felt a kiss touch his temple followed by a whisper in his ear.
"Yeah, you can stop now. You can rest."
"Thank you," he murmured wearily.
Rose rubbed his back for a moment, then had a thought. "Tell you what, why don't I go run you a bath? Have a nice, hot soak. How's that sound?" She received only a nod in response. "All right then, just sit tight and I'll be right back."
While Rose went into the bathroom to begin running the water for his bath, the Doctor peeled off his jacket and tossed it aside, then toed off his trainers. The thought of undressing any further seemed like far too much work. He flopped backwards on the bed and closed his eyes for just a moment. Twelve seconds later, he was sound asleep.
Copyright © 2019 · All Rights Reserved · Fran Glass